I doubt this is the first place you’re reading about it, but Microsoft released Windows 7 RC1. The release candidate will have a fairly long life as a free OS, running without any limitation until March 1, 2010 at which time it will begin shutting down every two hours. It will completely expire on June 1, 2010. The March 1st date is well beyond most guesses for the official Windows 7 release date. I’m still running the beta version on my bare metal windows machine and I’m quit happy with [...] Read the rest »
Parallels 4 Released and Installed
Parallels recently released version 4 of their Parallels Desktop for Mac. I’ve been running Parallels 3 on my iMac and have three virtual machines configured. The first is Windows Vista Ultimate, the second is Ubuntu 8.04 Server and the third is a little used Windows XP Home virtual machine. I purchased the upgrade and just completed converting the Vista and Ubuntu VMs. The upgrade wasn’t problem free. The Vista upgrade ended up being successful but required some manual intervention. The Ubuntu Server upgrade resulted in a VM that can’t talk [...] Read the rest »
Apple Software Updates
I finally got around to applying to recent Apple updates to my iMac. I’ve been queueing them up starting with the iTunes 8 update. Part of the reason is I wanted to limit changes while I was recovering my Windows Home Server. But the main reason was I’ve come to expect problems when applying updates from Apple. So far the problems have been minor. While waiting to apply the updates I’d read about people losing iTunes songs and album art after installing iTunes 8 A common thread for the missing [...] Read the rest »
Optimizing A Windows Vista Virtual Machine
The Team Fusion blog has an article about optimizing Vista on VMware Fusion 2. Since it’s from the VMware folks it’s titled as VMware specific, but it’s appropriate for any Vista virtual machine. Suggestions include: Disable System Restore Disable Screen Saver Optimize Power Management for Virtual Machine Disable Windows Sidebar Disable Remote Management Run Windows Disk Defragmentation Utilities OPTIONAL: Change to Classic UI Disabling system restore is something I hadn’t considered although I do severely limit the disk space it’s given. I like the option of bein able to roll [...] Read the rest »
Ubuntu 7.10 Server to Ubuntu 8.04 Server (Hardy Heron) Under Parallels
Even though I’m still in the middle of building my Ubuntu test server I decided to go ahead and upgrade it to Ubuntu Server 8.04 (Hardy Heron). Sure, I’m still learning all this stuff and this will make it harder to troubleshoot problems. Upgrade issue? My configuration error? Oh well, it’s all for fun anyway. My environment is Ubuntu Server 7.10 under Parallels Desktop 3 Build 5584 running on OS X 10.5.2. For complete details you can see earlier articles in the Ubuntu Server series. First off I make sure [...] Read the rest »
Installing Ubuntu 7.10 Server Under Parallels
I wanted to install Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) Server as a virtual machine under Parallels on my iMac. Server has a couple of differences from the desktop version. The first is that the Graphical User Interface (GUI) isn’t installed which is my primary reason for wanting it over the desktop version. It’s all command line. The second, and the one I didn’t really consider until the troubles began is that there’s a different kernel. Really, the different kernel is the major difference since the GUI could be installed on the [...] Read the rest »
The OS Quest Trail Log #17: A Virtual Week
This week was almost all about Virtual Machines on the Quest. Parallels released a couple of beta updates and eventually the final production release this week. My biggest complaint about Parallels was that the Windows task bar appears in every space even when Parallels is assigned to one space. But the more I used Parallels the less this was a problem. Not because I didn’t mind the task bar, but because I’m not using coherence mode. I run my VMs one of two ways, either full screen in the Space [...] Read the rest »
Parallels 3 Build 5582 Released – The Leopard Release
Parallels released build 5582 (RC1 was Build 5580) for Parallels Desktop 3 for the Mac which is the latest production release. I downloaded and installed the update, and I’m running Windows Live Writer in it now. The list of fixes is everything since the last production release so it’s hard to say what changed between build 5580 and this one. It wasn’t available to me through automatic update. I’m not sure if that’s because I was too early or because I was running a beta. So I downloaded and installed [...] Read the rest »
Software Update: Parallels Desktop 3 RC Build 5580
Parallels has released Build 5580 for Parallels Desktop 3. It’s a release candidate for their Leopard compatible version. Since it’s still beta software it won’t appear in automatic update. Parallels hasn’t run well for me since upgrading to Leopard so I’ve been installing the betas. The previous release, Build 5570, was basically unusable for me, but so far this release seems stable. It starts in it’s assigned Space and is doing what it’s told. The Parallels Tools install started automatically the first time I started my Windows XP virtual machine. [...] Read the rest »
Parallels 3 Beta Updated
Parallels has released Parallels 3 Beta Build 5570, it’s available from their beta download page. Most of the improvements over the previous beta center around Leopard compatibility. I’d been having problems with Parallels under Leopard which had driven me to start using VMware Fusion almost exclusively. Most of my really annoying issues have seemed to revolve around Spaces in coherence mode. The release noted mention “multiple problems” in this area have been fixed. The release notes (included in the download DMG file) lists several known issues that remain in build [...] Read the rest »